This served us well. My brother and I duked it out on the Scrabble field. It is the one place I have been able to outbrain him. (And only a handful of times. My brother makes space lasers for a living so this is a huge accomplishment.)

Anyway.

Along with books, board games are my go-to gifts for pretty much every child’s birthday. Because they’re (typically) not gender specific and they invite socialization between friends, siblings and family members without the use of screens.

Also, Scrabble. As in, David, I totally beat you once. (I want my kids and kids’ friends to create their OWN claims to fame on the “I sunk the unsinkable” tip. Those badges of honor are everything.)

We have a game closet at home and my parents have one at their house, too, and when we go to visit them (before I have so much as unpacked the suitcases) Archer and Fable have set up board games and are like, “OKAY. GUYS. NOW. LET’S GO. WHO’S IN!”

This is something they do not do at home for many reasons, the main one being, there are (at least!) twice as many adults available to play games at my parents’ house.

…Which is why I snuck this goal in at the buzzer. I want my kids to be as pumped to play games at home as they are at my parents’ house. I am determined to find a way!

So game night it is.

Hal pops his world famous cinnamon sugar popcorn, everyone gets to pick a game and if we have time and it isn’t, you know, midnight, everyone gets a turn to choose a game.

Dogopoly (Fable’s favorite. It even inspired her own more princess-y version.)

The Game of Life (The only people I know who like this game are Archer and Fable but they LOVE it so there you go.)

Any Matching Game

This is only just beginning this gathering of the board games, but it’s been a really good time. The twins are a little young to partake but soon enough we’ll all be able to duke out some Stratego together, three on three style.

***

How about you guys? What games do you enjoy playing as a family? Any recommendations?

We love Spot it (mentioned by Amy) we love to play “Domino Choo Choo” (also known by some as Mexican Train, and played with a regular set of dominoes) and we love The Ladybug Game. These can all be played by pretty much everyone 4 and up. For older children, our favorites include Labyrinth, Clue, Sequence, Uno, Banangrams and 22 Kudu. As you may be able to tell – we too have a game closet.
Finally – one that you could play with children – but that we recently had a wonderful time playing with a group of grownups – is called Whonu? by Cranium. It is a fun “get to know you” game that had us all laughing, and deciding to play “one more round”.